Creationism News -- August 2012 创造 论新闻 – 2012 年 8 月

1. Creationism News -- August 2012创造论新闻 – 2012年8月 Dedicated to David Coppedge who sacrificed his career as the Head Systems Administrator for the Cassini Spacecraft in JPL to honor the Creator of the Universe. He also spent literally thousands of hours to make his excellent websites. The contents of this presentation were taken from David Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. Pray for the results of his discrimination lawsuit against JPL. Pastor Chui http://ChristCenterGospel.org ckchui1@yahoo.com 8/16/2014 1

2. More Olympic Creatures更多奥运的生物 • Plants and animals continue to amaze us with their Olympic-level abilities.  New observations promote some to the award stand. • Diving:  For the first time, scientists succeeded in mounting a small video camera to the back of an imperial cormorant on the coast of Argentina, allowing humans to ride along and get a true bird’s eye view of its feeding behavior.  The BBC News  and Live Science posted the video, saying that the bird dives down 150 feet to the bottom in 40 seconds, spends a minute hunting, finds a fish, then comes up for air and lunch.  National Geographic said the video shocked researchers who didn’t know the birds dove so deep.  This is a rare opportunity to see a bird’s everyday athletics from its own perspective. 8/16/2014 2

3. More Olympic Creatures更多奥运的生物 • Weight lifting:  PhysOrg posted an article about how male animals grow large structures like horns on beetles and antlers on elk.  Because the structures are linked to insulin usage, though, Olympic judges might disqualify them for doping. 8/16/2014 3

4. More Olympic Creatures更多奥运的生物 • Moving plants:  We mustn’t discriminate against plants.  Even though most are anchored to the soil, they perform some remarkable feats in the track & field competition.  The BBC News posted a gallery called “Olympians of the botanical world.”  Did you know the bunchberry dogwood wins the shot put, explosively ejecting its spores at 800 G’s?  The fruits of the sandbox tree explode with the sound of a cannon.  Tumbleweeds win the marathon; they conquered the entire western US in under a decade.  And coast redwoods vault up to almost 380 feet above the forest floor. 8/16/2014 4

5. More Olympic Creatures更多奥运的生物 • War games:  Thank goodness there is not an Olympic competition for terror, but if there were, some termites would qualify for suicide bombing, an article on New Scientist suggests.  Fortunately, the termites are altruistic; they only use their backpack explosives to save their fellow hivemates when the hive is under attack, and the aged termites are the ones who sacrifice themselves.  “The chemical warfare employed by N. taracua is ‘one of the most sophisticated examples of exploding we have seen’, says Hanus. ‘We were very surprised to see it but there are many phenomena in nature that are not yet in the textbooks.’” 8/16/2014 5

6. More Olympic Creatures更多奥运的生物 • Not to shortchange humans, men and women are probably best in the all-around.  Live Science posted a video about medal contender Sarah Robles can lift 500 kg in the snatch and clean-and-jerk.  Robotics engineer Brian Zenowich remarked, “Watching what she’s doing, it just blows me away.”  At the London Olympic games this week, North Korean Kim Un Guk broke a world record, lifting three times his body weight (Mercury News), one of only a handful to accomplish this.  Humans also run, jump, throw, row, swim, shoot, ride, cycle, dive, do flips on a 4″ wide beam, and all the other amazing feats the Olympics bring together. 8/16/2014 6

7. More Olympic Creatures更多奥运的生物 • As that robotics engineer well knows, none of this just happens.  It takes engineering.  When humans combine their equipment with motivation, drive, sacrifice, courage and perseverance to go farther, faster and higher, it’s thrilling to watch.  We give them the credit for the work, but should we not honor the workmanship of the Creator much more? 8/16/2014 7

8. Palm Trees Thrived in Antarctica 棕榈树蓬勃发展在南极洲 • Evidence for tropical trees has been found 5 km deep off the coast of Antarctica. • The BBC News reported that explorers dropped a drill rig 4 km down into the ocean off the east coast of Antarctica, then drilled another kilometer through sediment.  The drill core included pollen grains of palm, and trees resembling baobab and macadamia.  Remnants of single-celled archaea were also found.“The lowland coastal region sported palm trees, while slightly inland, hills were populated with beech trees and conifers,” the article said. 8/16/2014 8

9. Palm Trees Thrived in Antarctica 棕榈树蓬勃发展在南极洲 • The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) dates the sediments as Eocene, 53 million years old in the evolutionary timeline.  The researchers infer from the flora that global temperatures were some 5°C warmer than today.  That would have created no sharp division between the poles and equator. Even in the darkest part of winter, temperatures at the poles probably did not drop below 10°C (50°F). 8/16/2014 9

10. Palm Trees Thrived in Antarctica 棕榈树蓬勃发展在南极洲 • “The early Eocene was a period of atmospheric CO2 concentrations higher than the current 390 parts per million (ppm)—reaching at least 600 ppm and possibly far higher,” the article said.   Scientists believe this data can help improve computerized climate models.  Even though the article claimed that “Eocene represents heightened levels of CO2 that will not be reached any time soon, and may not be reached at all if CO2 emissions abate,” it ended by arguing that current climate models are making good predictions of future warming. 8/16/2014 10

11. Palm Trees Thrived in Antarctica 棕榈树蓬勃发展在南极洲 • Well, isn’t this remarkable.  First of all, what’s the worry about human-caused global warming if it got much warmer in the past when evolutionists say people weren’t around?  Obviously all the land animals and plants survived this episode, including the living fossils that are so delicate they tell us humans are making them go extinct.  And how they can prove that “Archaea hold on to their structure through millions of years.” 8/16/2014 11

12. Palm Trees Thrived in Antarctica 棕榈树蓬勃发展在南极洲 • Second, and even more important, evolutionists have no theory for why the earth should have warmed up at that time.  Many Biblical creationists, though, without the millions-of-years timeline, believe that the pre-Flood world sported a moderate climate without a large difference between the poles and equator, just like the data indicate.  The Flood, however, changed all that, burying the antediluvian world beneath miles of sediment – and ushering in a much more recent Ice Age whose effects are still damping out.  Which account is a better match to the data? 8/16/2014 12

13. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • Instant dinosaurs: just add mountains.  Does this and other fossil news make sense? • Mountains into dinosaurs:  Here’s the headline on PhysOrg: “Mountains, seaway triggered North American dinosaur surge.”  The idea is not that mountains made dinosaurs make more babies, but that North American mountain uplifts made dinosaurs evolve into more species.   “We hypothesize that such isolation facilitated rapid speciation and increased diversity in these animals,” one of the authors of a paper on PLoS ONE stated.  The paper’s title makes it clear: they believe “Mountain Building Triggered Late Cretaceous North American Megaherbivore Dinosaur Radiation.”  They explicitly pointed to geological “triggers” like mountain uplift and seaways as a “causal mechanism” to explain the diversity of late Cretaceous dinosaurs.  8/16/2014 13

14. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • Their study of the timing of geological events was performed “to identify correlative factors that may have driven lineage diversification at more inclusive levels.” • There’s a well-known maxim in science, “correlation is not causation.”  Did they explain how the presence of a mountain or sea barrier “triggered” beneficial mutations to be selected for the formation of new species of dinosaurs?  Did they evaluate other animal groups with their hypothesis that mountains trigger speciation?  No; they didn’t even compare other dinosaur groups.  “Application of these results to other dinosaur groups contemporaneously living in Laramidia is an interesting prospect. The major hurdle to such comparative studies is insufficient fossil records of other clades, although based on limited data theropods may exhibit similar trends.” 8/16/2014 14

15. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • Volcanoes into teeth:  Another use of the phrase “evolutionary trigger” can be found in an article by National Geographic about fossil rodents with “supertough teeth.”  According to reporter Brian Handwerk, two new fossil rodent species from South America “arose during a rodent evolutionary explosion, which occurred after their ancestors had likely rafted to the continent from Africa on floating debris about 3.5 million years ago.”  While visions of exploding rodents may not be a pretty picture, Handwek was excited.  He claims that South America was an “evolutionary hot spot” 40 million years ago.  What was the trigger for the “rodent evolutionary explosion”? 8/16/2014 15

16. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • One paleontologist explained, “frequent volcanism, which can make soils rougher, could be an evolutionary trigger for hypsodonty” (heavily enameled crowns).   It could be, sure.  Anything could be.  It could also be an evolutionary trigger to wear the teeth down and make them go extinct.  There are volcanoes all over the world; where is the corroborating evidence that animals living near volcanoes evolve supertough teeth? • Speaking of tough teeth, did you know your teeth are as hard as shark’s teeth? We don’t need to feel inadequate, Science Now reported. 8/16/2014 16

17. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • Empty Cambrian promise:  Another team publishing in PLoS ONE described exquisite soft-tissue preservation of Middle Cambrian arthropods fossilized in what is now Sweden.  The first paragraph of their paper teased, “The famous ‘Orsten’ taxa have provided significant insights into the Cambrian biota and early Phanerozoic metazoan evolution.”  But the only insight they gave into evolution was waffling speculation, stated in the last paragraph as follows: 8/16/2014 17

18. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • A speculative explanation for the appearance of musculature in the labrum from an evolutionary point of view is that opening of the buccal cavity could take preference over a more sophisticated armament, allowing also a flattening of the labrum. The lack of dorso-ventral muscles in the investigated phosphatocopines may imply that these muscles appeared at a later stage in the evolution of crustaceans; however, it could also simply be a preservational artefact. 8/16/2014 18

19. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • Gap gabbing:Nature News announced a fossil insect discovery from Devonian strata in Belgium, said to be 370 million years old, that is “An insect to fill the gap” between the record-holder at 400 million years and the more abundant fossils from the Carboniferous at 325 million in the evolutionary timeline.  “A complete insect fossil from the Devonian period has long been sought,” the article by William A. Shear began. “The finding of a candidate may improve our patchy understanding of when winged insects evolved.” 8/16/2014 19

20. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • A closer look at the article, however, a clear six-legged critter already fully functioning, too small to “fill the gap” that worries paleontologists (Shear later said it “narrowed” the gap).  Mostly, he was concerned that so few paleontologists are even looking for fossils that can show insect evolution.  The authors of the paper in Nature (Garrouste et al., “A complete insect from the Late Devonian period, Nature 488, 02 Aug 2012, pp. 82–85, doi:10.1038/nature11281) did not even mention evolution.  The editor’s summary of the paper states, “The early evolutionary history of the insects is obscure.”  So what gap was Shear referring to that this insect filled? 8/16/2014 20

21. Dinosaur Triggers and Other Fossil Foibles恐龙触发器和其他化石弱点 • Over and over, we see evolutionists cheating with the data, claiming that the latest fossil will “shed light on evolution.”  When will they see the light?  Those who already have the light don’t need whatever it is they’re shedding. 8/16/2014 21

22. Weightlifters No Match for Insects举重敌不过昆虫 • For Olympic season, here are more comparisons between human and animal capabilities. • Weightlifting:  The BBC News showed that, as remarkable as it is for a human to lift 2 or 3 times his body weight, leaf-cutter ants do better: 50x their body weight – and they’re not even contenders for the gold.  A male rhinoceros beetle can lift 850 times its own weight – equivalent to a human world champion “lifting six double-decker buses weighing over 8000 kg.”  There’s more: “But, the species to beat is a tiny mite that has been shown holding forces of up to 1180 times its weight and even pull 530 times its weight on a vertical surface.” 8/16/2014 22

23. Weightlifters No Match for Insects举重敌不过昆虫 • Sharpshooting:  The same BBC News article included a video of an archer fish hitting its target in the air from underwater, accurate up to 2 meters.  “This expert in ballistics even allows for the curving of the jet through gravity, and adjusts for the way light bends at the boundary between light and air, which appears to shift the position of its target.”   Blood-spitting cobras are pretty accurate with their shots, too. 8/16/2014 23

24. Weightlifters No Match for Insects举重敌不过昆虫 • Boxing:  Animal contenders in the boxing ring include male brown hares and kangaroos, who fight as courtship displays.  As reported here June 13, mantis shrimp have the fastest punch known in the animal kingdom, 23 meters per second. • Wrestling:  Champion animal wrestlers include red deer and stag beetles, with their “grand antlers and branching jaws” that lock during combat.  A video clip shows a beetle wrestling match. 8/16/2014 24

25. Weightlifters No Match for Insects举重敌不过昆虫 • Swimming: Dolphins have the best skin suits to reduce drag, the BBC News said, with thick blubber for a sleek look.  But it would be hard to beat penguin suits, that glide along through a skin of bubbles.  As for long distance records, remember the polar bear that was observed swimming nine days nonstop? (1/25/2011). • Elephants emit long-distance infrasound signals using the same vibrating larynx mechanism as humans, Science Daily reported.  Scientists determined this by testing the actual larynx of an elephant that had recently died of natural causes. 8/16/2014 25

26. Weightlifters No Match for Insects举重敌不过昆虫 • Bird airlines:  Migrating birds keep remarkable time, PhysOrg reported.  Songbirds as common as the wood thrush” follow a strict annual schedule when migrating to their breeding grounds – with some birds departing on precisely the same date each year.”  A scientist at York University remarked, Much like airplanes, there are many factors that can influence birds’ flight schedules, such as weather at departure and expected conditions at the other end of the journey. Amazingly, these small songbirds are highly consistent in their timing between years.” 8/16/2014 26

27. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • For an enterprise as secular and materialistic as science, there’s a lot of talk about morality these days. • Human subjects:  This past week,  Science magazine reported on a government panel that is revising the 1991 regulations on human research.  Rebecca Dresser reported, “Although these concepts underlie many Common Rule provisions, insights gained since 1991 and unaddressed problems in the current oversight system point to new measures that could enhance the rule’s ethical legitimacy.” (Science, 3 August 2012: Vol. 337 no. 6094 pp. 527–528, DOI: 10.1126/science.1218323.)  She used the word “moral” five times, as in the last section, “A Fundamental Moral Judgment” – 8/16/2014 27

28. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Underlying the research oversight system is a fundamental moral judgment: Human subjects have interests that should not be subordinated to the interests of the patients, researchers, industry stakeholders, and others who gain health and monetary benefits from the research enterprise. In the United States and elsewhere, allegiance to this moral judgment demands robust efforts to educate prospective research subjects, help subjects who are harmed in research, and evaluate the quality of human research proposals. 8/16/2014 28

29. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Research misconduct:  In Nature, Colin Macilwain wrote that “The time is ripe to confront misconduct.”  He is encouraged that some scientific institutions are beginning to take this problem seriously: “For too long, scientists’ instinctive defensiveness has produced general denial that misconduct constitutes a serious problem.”  The statement suggests that scientists tend to have a moral superiority complex.  Science, after all is supposed to be self-correcting; misconduct, they thought, must be rare among their ranks.  “Few senior scientists now believe that,” Macilwain said.  “They know that misconduct exists and that, unchecked, it can undermine public regard for science and scientists.” 8/16/2014 29

30. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Some institutions have seen fraud investigations as contrary to academic freedom, but noteworthy cases of fraud are changing attitudes.  “Worldwide, however, research integrity is now very much in the spotlight.”  He spoke of a couple of initiatives being taken to address the issue, then ended: “Together, the studies represent a historic opportunity to deal with what is, perhaps, the single most potent threat to science’s prestige”  (Nature 488, 02 Aug 2012, page 7, doi:10.1038/488007a). 8/16/2014 30

31. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Mentoring:  It’s natural for a trainee to want to please and imitate his or her mentor.  Nature recognized this as a problem and an opportunity: mentors should be the ones to teach integrity and forestall misconduct.  In “The roots of research misconduct,” William Neaves argued that “Mentors should understand what causes misconduct among trainees — and keep in mind some possible remedies” (Nature 488, 01 Aug 2012, pp. 121–122, doi:10.1038/nj7409-121a). 8/16/2014 31

32. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • It’s not enough to teach about the importance of integrity, he said; “Consistently modelling good practice beats lecturing hands down, and discussing ethical guidelines at laboratory meetings helps the team to appreciate honesty — and the grim consequences of misconduct.”  This requires overcoming the mentor’s natural reluctance to bring up the subject, and understanding what motivates fraud among young scientists.  “Mentors should not avoid a discussion on research integrity just because of their own discomfort,” Neaves ended.  “The potential consequences for careers and reputations are too severe.” 8/16/2014 32

33. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Conflict of interest:  Bouncing off a case of a scientist with ties to industry contributing to a report giving fracking a clean bill of health, Nature’s editors took the opportunity to call for openness: “Scientists must remember that however irrelevant their involvement in industry might seem to them, others will see it differently — only full disclosure will avert the taint of scandal.”  (Nature 488, 02 Aug 2012, p. 5, doi:10.1038/488005a).  The editors were not claiming a scandal existed; they were just skittish about the possibility of damage to the reputation of science if scientists do not reveal possible biases.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant, they believe: 8/16/2014 33

34. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Experts in many fields bounce between academia, government and industry during their careers. Universities could not exclude people who have industry connections from their ranks, nor would they want to. The same goes for government. There is also nothing inherently wrong with universities accepting donations from industry to conduct studies, as long as the proper protections are put in place. The key is transparency, because that is the basis for trust between institutions and the wider public, which is especially important when people are buffeted by confusing, contradictory and inflammatory information. What the public needs, and what scientists must deliver, is reliable information that is honest about both its methods and its inevitable biases. What it needs is full disclosure. 8/16/2014 34

35. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • False positives:  Ethics requires avoidance of exaggeration.  On July 27, Daniel MacArthur wrote in Nature about the risk of scientists treating “eye-catching artefacts” as “genomic insights” (Nature 487, 26 July 2012, pp. 427–428, doi:10.1038/487427a).  Beginning with a recent highly-advertised case, he said, “As it turned out, at least some of the results from this study were surprising simply because they were wrong.”  Technical errors not caught by quality control can lead to false positives, especially in data sets where the complexity is huge: 8/16/2014 35

36. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • In fact, it has never been easier to generate high-impact false positives than in the genomic era, in which massive, complex biological data sets are cheap and widely available. To be clear, the majority of genome-scale experiments yield real results, many of which would be impossible to uncover through targeted hypothesis-driven studies. However, hunting for biological surprises without due caution can easily yield a rich crop of biases and experimental artefacts, and lead to high-impact papers built on nothing more than systematic experimental ‘noise’. 8/16/2014 36

37. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Flawed papers cause harm beyond their authors: they trigger futile projects, stalling the careers of graduate students and postdocs, and they degrade the reputation of genomic research. To minimize the damage, researchers, reviewers and editors need to raise the standard of evidence required to establish a finding as fact. 8/16/2014 37

38. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • In genomics, for instance, surprising data can occur by chance.  Additionally, the technologies can generate their own biases.  In a paraphrase of the maxim, “If something is too good to be true, it probably is,” MacArthur wrote, “Few principles are more depressingly familiar to the veteran scientist: the more surprising a result seems to be, the less likely it is to be true.”  Yet quality control and reproducibility take time.   He suggested standards for journal editors and scientists; fortunately, open-access and online commenting are providing more rapid critical responses, which MacArthur encouraged.  His last paragraph shows that carefulness is a part of ethics: 8/16/2014 38

39. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Nothing can completely prevent the publication of incorrect results. It is the nature of cutting-edge science that even careful researchers are occasionally fooled. We should neither deceive ourselves that perfect science is possible, nor focus so heavily on reducing error that we are afraid to innovate. However, if we work together to define, apply and enforce clear standards for genomic analysis, we can ensure that most of the unanticipated results are surprising because they reveal unexpected biology, rather than because they are wrong. 8/16/2014 39

40. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • As with any human enterprise, honesty is an essential pillar.  Without it, nothing else matters when trust collapses.  But where does ethics come from?  In Science, John T. Jost reviewed a new book by Jonathan Haight, The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (John T. Jost, “Social Psychology: Left and Right, Right and Wrong,” Science 3 August 2012: Vol. 337 no. 6094 pp. 525–526, DOI: 10.1126/science.1222565 ).  Haight, a popular social psychologist, tried to conjure up man’s moral sense from evolutionary “psychological foundations” – 8/16/2014 40

41. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • In The Righteous Mind, Haidt attempts to explain the psychological foundations of morality and how they lead to political conflicts. The book’s three parts are not as compatible or settled as Haidt’s ingenious prose makes them seem. The first revisits the intriguing arguments of an earlier, influential paper (1) in which he argued that moral reasoning is nothing but post hoc rationalizing of gut-level intuitions. The second introduces an evolutionarily inspired framework that specifies five or six “moral foundations” and applies this framework to an analysis of liberal-conservative differences in moral judgments. In the third part, Haidt speculates that patriotism, religiosity, and “hive psychology” in humans evolved rapidly through group-level selection. 8/16/2014 41

42. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Jost found contradiction in Haight’s premise that morality is nothing more than post-hoc rationalization of intuitive, emotional reactions by finding post-hoc rationalization in the book’s own moral judgments about what humans ought to do.  “Ultimately, Haidt’s own rhetorical choices render his claim to being unbiased unconvincing,” Jost said charitably.  He is not ready to accept the premise that our “primitive ancestral legacy” can be a guide to right and wrong: 8/16/2014 42

43. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Before drawing sweeping, profound conclusions about the politics of morality, Haidt needs to address a more basic question: What are the specific, empirically falsifiable criteria for designating something as an evolutionarily grounded moral foundation? Haidt sets the bar pretty low—anything that suppresses individual selfishness in favor of group interests. By this definition, the decision to plunder (and perhaps even murder) members of another tribe would count as a moral adaptation. Recent research suggests that Machiavellianism, authoritarianism, social dominance, and prejudice are positively associated with the moral valuation of ingroup, authority, and purity themes [e.g., (6, 7)]. If these are to be ushered into the ever-broadening tent of group morality, one wonders what it would take to be refused admission. 8/16/2014 43

44. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • I see no compelling reason to assume that morality is—let alone should be—whatever comes first, easiest, or even most forcefully to mind (because of our evolutionary heritage or otherwise). In many situations behaving morally may require us to do what is difficult, perhaps even “unnatural” in some sense. Or, as John Stuart Mill put it (8), “… Nature cannot be a proper model for us to imitate. Either it is right that we should kill because nature kills; torture because nature tortures; ruin and devastate because nature does the like; or we ought not to consider what nature does, but what it is good to do.” • Jost, however, failed to define goodness or reveal his own theory of the grounds of morality. 8/16/2014 44

45. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • It’s nice that ethics is getting a hearing more and more, but who are the editors of Nature to lecture the rest of us about morality?  The rag since its inception was devoted to pushing the Darwinian world view: a system where “ethics,” whatever that means, is a mere artifact of the struggle for fitness.  They can’t play both sides of the fence here, preaching the Darwin-Tyndall materialist view most of the time, but the Christian sermon when scientific fraud becomes an issue.  How about some full disclosure by the editors?  8/16/2014 45

46. Scientific Ethics Concerns Rising 科学道德问题上涨 • Tell us about all your leftist political connections that generate a hugely lopsided leftist viewpoint whenever anything political is involved.  How about some repentance for Nature’s involvement with eugenics and other atrocities with human subjects in the past?  How about some fact checking when evolutionists push their false positives about some bone shedding light on evolution?  How about confessing your own conflicts of interest when advocating increased taxpayer funding of your favorite projects?  We don’t need your sermons about ethics.  You need to go to church.   You need to hear some real sermons about the only solid foundation for ethics: the word of the Lord: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” 8/16/2014 46

47. Curiosity Set to Explore Mars好奇设定为探索火星 • Having survived its nail-biting entry, descent and landing, the Curiosity rover is ready to roll on Mars. • The excitement in the Mission Support Area at JPL when the signal came down that Curiosity was alive on the surface will be replayed for years to come as one of the great moments in space exploration.  First pictures indicate that the rover is healthy.  Next, there will be a prolonged checkout period before science collection begins in Gale Crater and Mt. Sharp, the central peak. 8/16/2014 47

48. Curiosity Set to Explore Mars好奇设定为探索火星 • At the press conference following the historic landing, project manager Pete Theisinger stated that the nominal mission is two years, but the rover was tested for three times nominal but not to failure.  Given that the Opportunity rover is still going strong after 8 years, Curiosity could be exploring Mars for the next decade. • The website for following Curiosity’s progress is mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl.  “Curiosity” is the name given to the Mars Science Laboratory, or MSL. 8/16/2014 48

49. Curiosity Set to Explore Mars好奇设定为探索火星 • In the delirious celebration of landing, little was said about astrobiology or the search for life up through the first press conference.  That will change.  The press and the scientists are obsessed with finding life on another world.  Curiosity is not able to detect life; at most, it can find conditions for habitability.  We know from experience that the L-word life will appear often in upcoming press releases.  Keep your focus on the data, not on the claims.  Remember that scientific discovery is very different from scientific explanation.  Raw data from distant worlds has usually been discouraging for astrobiologists.  We’ll see if Curiosity keeps that tradition going. 8/16/2014 49

50. Curiosity Set to Explore Mars好奇设定为探索火星 • For the moment, this is time to celebrate on a profound achievement of human intelligent design – design rightly attributed by the panelists to the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave people who attempt daring things.  Congratulations to the hundreds of American men and women who participated in making this long-awaited entry, descent and landing a resounding success. 8/16/2014 50